UCLA Doesn't Need Shabazz Muhammad: Here's Why

In 2008, UCLA appeared to be on the verge of once more becoming the kind of powerhouse that could exert its dominance over college basketball on a seasonal basis.

We'd seen talented Bruins sides since John Wooden's reign, but we'd never seen anything close to that unprecedented run of seven consecutive national championships—a feat the Wizard of Westwood accomplished from 1966 to 1973 (he'd won his first title in 1964).

But current head coach Ben Howland looked ready to make a run at his own dominance. After all, he'd brought UCLA back from the Steve Lavin-induced precipice of 2003, and led the Bruins to three straight Final Fours (2006-08), including an appearance in the 2006 title game, just three seasons into his tenure.

After the '08 Bruins bowed out to Memphis in the Final Four, UCLA fans could console themselves with the fact that while they were losing Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook (future NBA lottery picks), they were gaining the No. 1-ranked recruiting class in the nation (commitments from Gatorade National Player of the Year Jrue Holiday, Malcolm Lee, Jerime Anderson, J'Mison Morgan, and Drew Gooden).

Bruins fans were champing at the bit for the 2008-09 season to begin. Sports Illustrated had UCLA ranked No. 3 in their preseason top 20. A fourth consecutive Final Four appearance seemed a definite possibility. Heck, for UCLA fans, used to national title banners being hung in Pauley Pavilion—not Final Four ones—it was a prerequisite.

They finally had a perennial power, after so many years of flitting on the periphery of national powerhouses and seeing programs like Duke and North Carolina chip away at the distance between their national championship tally and UCLA's record 11.

But we all know how that script played out.

Holiday took the tried and trusty one-and-done route to the NBA Love and Westbrook had paved before him, and within two years, Gordon and Morgan were gone, transferred to New Mexico and Baylor, respectively.

Lee stuck around for 2010-11, UCLA's brightest season of late, when as a junior, he teamed with sophomores Tyler Honeycutt and Reeves Nelson to help lead the Bruins to a 23-11 (13-5) record.

After UCLA bowed out to Florida in the NCAA tournament second round, however, Lee decided to enter the NBA draft and hire an agent. He was drafted in the second round (along with Honeycutt, who also made the jump), thus scuppering what had looked to be a top 15 UCLA side for 2011-12.

That leaves just Anderson from the most ballyhooed recruiting class to come to UCLA in some time—perhaps since the 1998 edition, which saw the signings of Dan Gadzuric, Ray Young, JaRon Rush, and Jerome Moiso seal the No. 1 national ranking for Lavin's third-ever recruiting class.

Three McDonald's All-Americans in that class, no national title.

In 2008, it ran something along the same lines. Love was the only AA on the roster, but that team had four future NBA players in its starting five (Westbrook, Love, Mbah a Moute, Collison).

As UCLA has shown all too clearly in recent years, "top" recruits—especially when they're of the one-and-done variety—don't always equal success. At least not the type UCLA wants and expects.

There's only so many times lightning (i.e. Carmelo for Syracuse in 2002-03) can strike to counter that claim.

So, given UCLA's well-documented struggles of late—both on the court and in recruiting—for a program that claims it only hangs championship banners in the rafters, two second-round appearances in the NCAAs over three seasons is nothing to celebrate.

I just don't see how next season's recruiting class, which already is being bandied about as one of the nation's best, can save UCLA from its current quagmire.

Maybe quagmire's not the right word. It's more like molasses. UCLA just can't shake itself from mere decency bordering on irrelevancy, and elevate back into the nation's elite.

Yes, Kyle Anderson and Jordan Adams (the two recruits currently signed for next season) are excellent talents. Anderson, a 6'8" point forward, may well be a future NBA superstar.

But then, Holiday was once the Gatorade National Player of the Year. So was Love.

Both are currently considered among the NBA's top youngsters; maybe even players.

Yet neither delivered what UCLA fans wanted during their brief stays in Westwood.

In fact, Holiday's most memorable contribution may have been his chutzpah in "informing" Ben Howland of his decision to enter the NBA draft by way of a newspaper article.

Should Ben Howland sign Shabazz Muhammad, ranked the No. 2 player on Scouthoops and the No. 1 on Rivals, it could well catapult UCLA to another No. 1 class ranking.

Wait, we've heard this before.

I follow Shabazz on Twitter. I've watched his highlight videos. I've seen the hundreds and thousands of admirers who gush over his every move, telling him he'll be a star in the league.

I've heard the rumors: UCLA are in it to win it with Muhammad, who is also seriously considering hometown UNLV (he attends Bishop Gorman High in Nevada), Duke, and Kentucky, among others.

He's a lefty slasher who can bang with the best of them. He's one of the best prep dunkers seen in years.

Odds are, he'll have every chance to make a name for himself in the pros. I just don't think it's in UCLA's best interest for him to make a pit-stop in Westwood for a season before declaring for the NBA.

UCLA needs an overhaul, not a band-aid by way of a 5-star recruit.

Their recent run aside, when they've won six of nine—most recently dispatching a hapless Arizona State side 66-57 in Tempe, there is a palpable sense of something missing within this current team.

Maybe it's seen as a lack of desire on the defensive end—the kind that allowed St. John's to run riot on the offensive glass last weekend at Madison Square Garden, where the Red Storm outhustled and outmuscled the Bruins on the way to a 66-63 victory.

Or maybe it's the frightening inefficiency on the offensive end, where I'm often more mesmerized by Tyler Lamb's infinite tattoos than his actual production.

UCLA goes through spurts where they appear to be going through the motions of Howland's intricate sets, rather than looking to pry open gaps and make use of lanes.

The meltdowns against the Oregon schools back in January verified everything I'd feared about this team.

High-profile recruits like Josh Smith were rendered moot points ridden by foul trouble. The best players in that game were transfers (Lazeric Jones, from junior college a season ago) and the Wear twins (eligible this season after sitting out 2010-11 following their move from North Carolina).

That's fine for some teams, but not for UCLA. Call me an elitist, but the only kind of transfer who should be playing at UCLA should be of the Ed O'Bannon variety.

Look at the Howland teams that were so successful from, we'll say 2005-2009 (UCLA made three consecutive Final Fours in 2006, '07, and '08, and exited the '09 tourney in the second round after losing big to Villanova).

There was a mix of top-level talent (headline recruits like Arron Afflalo, Jordan Farmar, and Kevin Love, Darren Collison, and Russell Westbrook) sprinkled amongst the blue-collar types of Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, Aboya, and even Cedric Bozeman and Ryan Hollins, who were key players during the '06 run to the Final Four.

Even Westbrook flew under the radar as a recruit—Howland only started recruiting him heavily in his senior year at Leuziger (Calif.) High, when he began to blow up.

And I'd say Westbrook was more effective on the defensive end while at UCLA, where he worked tirelessly to lock up opposing players. The dunks were nice, but at no time did you ever see him enjoying the type of top-tiered NBA career he currently finds himself in.

It was a Baron Davis-esque type of conversion from college to the pros in terms of production. Or Jrue Holiday. Take your pick.

That bedrock that was so effective for the Bruins less than five years ago has flown the coop. Where are the suffocating double-teams we once saw with such frequency? Where's the excellent perimeter defense that snuffed out top opposing scorers like clockwork? Where are the leaders?

Would Collison or Afflalo have let UCLA drop that game against Washington earlier this month? I don't think so.

That meshing of different-style players—stars alongside blue-collar types who know their role (similar to the Chicago Bulls championship teams of the '90s) worked wonders for Howland, and it was a big reason for his success.

Make no mistake, during the heyday of the last decade, UCLA was a defensive team with OK offense. Everything started through defensive stops, whether it was a Westbrook fast break or a KLove outlet pass.

UCLA's consistency was perhaps the most remarkable part of those three Final Four years. They managed the departures of players, restocked, and came right back and won with others. Florida didn't even make the tournament in '08 after winning back-to-back titles in '06 and '07.

When Farmar declared for the draft in '06, and people wondered who'd run the point for the Bruins, Darren Collison stepped right up as a sophomore and helped UCLA win the Maui Invitational.

I honestly thought UCLA would never encounter a down year given Howland's remarkable track record in building the program back into the ranks of the nation's elite.

He seemed to have created a system where players were steadily groomed, then unleashed. UCLA could continue that tradition of success while keeping egos in check.

Turns out, I was wrong. That identity has largely deserted this program.

Howland has himself admitted that he made mistakes on the recruiting trail since 2007, and you can't help but shake your fists at him. Why change something that was working so well? Did he think a KLove or Holiday would push this team over the top and win a title?

Maybe. But what happened was neither delivered, and both left a palpable sense of discontent in regards to their time under Howland's tutelage.

Love's apparent criticism of the former Pittsburgh boss's system came through backhanded remarks from his father, who said Howland didn't run the UCLA offense through Love enough, and Holiday?

Well, he let Howland find out he was going pro by way of a newspaper article. And I doubt that, as a pure point guard growing up, he enjoyed playing off the ball so much.

Howland, like it or not, doesn't win by attracting the headline recruits. Sometimes, he does, but his system works with players who are committed to giving 100 percent effort on the defensive end, and doing the little things on offense that make his complicated sets work so efficiently.

When it's going good, it's like a watch's mechanisms firing in unison. There are the shooters posting up on the wing after running off a bevy of screens. There's the movement in the interior post. There's desire.

That's largely unseen these days, and it's resulted in a team that is 16-12, 9-6 Pac-12. The 69.2 points per game is disconcerting (it ranks UCLA 150th in Division 1), but Howland's teams have never been high scorers.

When his teams don't win, however, that's when the boosters begin getting annoyed with the lack of high-flying, attractive basketball so readily associated with Los Angeles. That's when they begin calling for better production.

Howland has missed out on recruits who might have helped this current team.

There's Allen Crabbe, now at Cal, who is one of the Pac-12's best scorers at 15.6 per game.

Then there's the Chase Stanbacks, Mike Mosers, and Matt Carlinos: players Howland brought into UCLA, but decided to transfer after seeing too time from the bench. The first two are now starring for a very good UNLV team.

Carlino is starting at point guard for BYU and dropped 30 points last Thursday at USF, showing a kind of explosiveness and dynamism at the point that would be hastily welcomed beside Jones and Anderson.

None of those players were considered of the 5-star variety while in high school. But each would start for UCLA right now. Go figure.

I thought that if Honeycutt and Lee had stayed this season, we could've seen something special. But they didn't, and I think that sums up the recent seasons, and current predicament at UCLA, perfectly.

For all the players Howland's sent to the pros (and there are many), he's yet to win a national championship. I don't think any fan likes where the program is right now, battling for mid-level scraps in the Pac-12.

Fans want titles, not draft picks.

If Howland is going to stay past this season, he needs to build the program back up like he once did. That isn't going to come by way of a quick-fix recruiting class, whose players will likely be gone in two years.

So good luck to Shabazz Muhammad wherever he ends up. I just don't think he's what UCLA need at the moment. It needs a major change. And that doesn't come through one one-and-done player.

We've seen that before.